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A sundry assortment.

This is a post to celebrate the joy of standing on my own little orange crate in my own little corner of the internet yelling at the speed of blogging into the void. These are some brief observations on the sweet nothings and big somethings that made their way into our news feed this week:

Tomi Lahren Elle Reeve

My first thought when I saw Elle Reeve on the Face the Nation Panel — aviator glasses, braided hipster blond — was “Good Lord, not another Tomi Lahren.”

And lo and behold, the Lord was good.

Ms. Reeve of Vice News was embedded in the crew that filmed the white supremacists in Charlottesville, specifically Christopher Cantwell’s ugly rant. And there is a little part of me that thinks his strong postured ranting was to impress Ms. Reeve, the womenz.

Good job, Ms. Reeve! I look forward to following your career.

Style-flexing with Trump

On Monday, August 21, after looking at the sky during the solar eclipse during the day, Trump read from teleprompters to deliver the speech outlining his Afghanistan war strategy. Operative word: read. In his cage-match with the office of President, we consider it a win when he sticks to prepared remarks. Ugh.

On Tuesday, August 22 Trump appeared to be unhinged at an off-the-rails campaign rally — yes, the POTUS has started campaigning — in Phoenix, AZ. (See also Trevor Noah’s commentary.)

On Wednesday, August 23, he was allegedly back to’Commander-in-Chief‘ tone at the national convention of the American Legion.

And lest we not forget, the Donald is The Grift that keeps on grifting. The Secret Service is blasting through their annual budget protecting all his graft.

Bannon and the media

Steve Bannon was let go from the White House on Friday, August 18. The media wet it’s collective pants because he is going to light things up via his orange crate — Breitbart. And due to the collective soiling, Breitbart will have more traffic just from the media coverage. Self-fulfilling prophecy.

The media can’t help it. To not report on what’s happening in alt-right Breitbart-land would be irresponsible. But instantaneously barking every pronouncement and event is reactionary.

I return to Elle Reeve this week who embodied speaking truth to power. In the face of a dangerous, difficult, scary situation her comportment remained professional delivering the facts based on her observations. And this was within a short time-period illustrating that news doesn’t need to be delivered via barking from a perch on an orange crate.

With news reported with the speed of data entry:typing:brain-to-fingers-point-and-click, a little more reflection and consideration would be much appreciated before pushing that ‘publish’ button. Please.

Trump pardons Joe Arpaio.

Bound to happen. Flexing POTUS muscle. It did not require budget approval, it did not require working with other branches of government, it sent a signal to his base.